Paper Ballots And Scanners In Use In 3 Municipalities

November 08, 1994|By DANA TOFIG; Courant Staff Writer

In three Connecticut municipalities, what's old is new again this Election Day -- with a modern-day twist.

Voters in Newington, South Windsor and Norwich will use paper ballots to choose their candidates. Their ballots will then be fed into electronic scanning machines, which will tally their votes and save the ballots in a locked bin.

``It's the best of the old world meets the best of the new world,'' said Tom McGivney, Newington's sales associate for Business Records of Cheshire, one of the companies supplying the machines. He said the electronic voting machines are already being used in many states.

The process is much like playing the state lottery. Voters will be handed a paper ballot when they come to vote and will be directed to one of several privacy booths.

In Newington and Norwich, next to the name of each candidate, there will be an arrow with a space in the middle. Voters can choose their candidate by completing the arrow next to that candidate's name. In South Windsor, voters will fill in a bubble next to their candidate's name. There will be a space in each race for a write-in vote. Voters can only cast a vote for one candidate in each race.

When the ballot is complete, voters can put their ballots in a privacy sleeve and then feed it into the electronic voting machine. The ballot will be scanned and read by the machine and then dropped into a locked bin. The machine automatically will route a ballot with a write-in vote to a different bin. Ballots with write-in votes will be counted after the polls close.

If a ballot has an error on it -- for instance, if a voter picked two people under one race -- it will be spit back out and a printed receipt will say what the problem is with the ballot.

Registrars of voters in the three municipalities have been giving demonstrations for a few months at town events, civic functions and senior centers. Some residents have just walked into the registrars' office and said they do not like the change.

``A man came in and was yelling and saying `I don't want this. I don't want to vote on this thing,' said Sharon Buczacki, the Democratic registrar in Newington. But after seeing how it worked, ``the man said this is simple,'' Buczacki said. ``But he's going to wait until Nov. 9 to apologize for yelling.''

The reaction has been pretty much the same in the other municipalities -- once people see how the new machines work, they like them.

``I think they get nervous when they see all the little arrows on the ballot,'' said Jane Przekop, the Democratic registrar of voters in Norwich. ``But, once you show them, they say `Oh, fine.' ''

South Windsor used the machines in a mock election last week.

``They thought it was great,'' said Janis Murtha, Republican registrar in South Windsor. ``They thought it was much easier.''

Whether people like the change in voting machines or not, they are going to have to get used to it.

The current lever-type voting machines ``are not built any more and are getting in disrepair fast,'' said Pauline Kezer, secretary of the state. The state legislature will meet in January to discuss changing the state's voting machines.

One quirk on the paper ballots is that cross-endorsed candidates only appear once. On the traditional voting machines, Democratic or Republican candidates who also receive the backing of A Connecticut Party are listed twice: once on the ACP line, once on their party's line. But on the paper ballots, they are listed once, with both parties next to their name.

No one is expecting any problems with the new machines. There will be plenty of people at the polls to show voters how to use the new system, and all the ballots will be saved in case there is a massive power failure. Also, there are extra machines in case of breakdown.